Guest Author: Shana Galen & Givaway!

I’m so pleased to be hosting one of my favorite historical romance authors on the blog today. She’s Shana Galen, and she writes bestselling, Regency-set historical romance that’s both adventurous and sexy. One of my most enjoyable reads this year was Lord and Lady Spy, which is a great caper story and a wonderful romance with a huge amount of heart. I loved it!

Like most of America and the UK, I fell in love with Downton Abbey last year. I’m not much of a TV-watcher, and my husband was so intrigued by my sudden interest, he took watched and was hooked. He’s not a writer, so when the weekly episode was over, it was over for him.

Not so for me. The cast—or at least their images—stayed in my mind. I was writing my September release, When You Give a Duke a Diamond at the time, and some of the actors provided perfect inspiration for my novel’s characters. You can see a few of my choices on my When You Give a Duke a DiamondPinterest board.

The Duke

I chose Dan Stevens, who playsMatthew Crawley on Downton, as the model in appearance for William, the sixth Duke of Pelham. Matthew and Will have almost nothing in common personality-wise. Matthew actually seems to enjoy some leisure on the weekends. Pelham does not know the meaning of the word leisure and does not care to. He’s rigid, staid, and adheres to his routine almost as though it were a lifeline. He has many secrets and a dark past.

And when he meets the Duchess of Dalliance, his routine will never be the same again.

The Diamond

Robin Wright Penn, who played Buttercup in The Princess Bride, has the look of my spontaneous, fun-loving heroine Juliette. Juliette has been dubbed the Duchess of Dalliance, and she’s one of three glamorous courtesans known as The Three Diamonds. She cannot afford to be cut by the powerful Dangerous Duke, but that’s exactly what happens at the Prince Regent’s ball. And then to make matters worse, Juliette witnesses a murder at the ball.

The apparent murder of the Duke of Pelham’s fiancée.

The Jewels

When You Give a Duke a Diamond is the first in a new series, and I introduce several characters who feature prominently in future books. The Countess of Sinclair is one such character. She’s the much pitied wife of the Earl of Sin, the protector (read: lover) of The Three Diamonds. But take one look at my choice for the countess—Maggie Smithin her role as the Dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey—and you’ll know there’s more to the countess than it seems.

You’ll have to visit my other Pinterest boardsfor pictures of Juliette’s friends Fallon and Lily. They’ll each get their own books, filled with dangerous diamonds and dangerous men.

Do you like to picture “celebrities” as the characters in books? Who are some of your favorites?

He had a perfectly orderly life…

William, the sixth Duke of Pelham, enjoys his punctual, securely structured life. Orderly and predictable—that’s the way he likes it. But he’s in the public eye, and the scandal sheets will make up anything to sell papers. When the gossip papers link him to Juliette, one of the most beautiful and celebrated courtesans in London, chaos doesn’t begin to describe what happens next…

Until she came along…

Juliette is nicknamed the Duchess of Dalliance and has the cream of the nobility at her beck and call. It’s disruptive to have the duke who is the biggest catch on the Marriage Mart scaring her other suitors away. Then she discovers William’s darkest secret and decides what he needs in his life is the kind of excitement only she can provide…

There you have it, folks! The first book in Shana’s new series. For my readers today, Shana is giving away a copy of When You Give a Duke a Diamond to those of you in the U.S. or Canada. Just answer her question about celebrity inspired characters for a chance to win. And don’t forget to visit her website for more info about her books, and also check out her group blog, The Sisterhood of the Jaunty Quills.

I don’t like to picture characters as celebrities, either when I’m reading or writing a story. When I hear/read a name, I instantly picture that person in my head, everything: hair and eye color, build, even sometimes a quirk or two, just to make things interesting! I can’t wait to read to your new series!

Cynthia, I totally understand that. I think it means you’re really able to conjure up your own image of the characters from the authors descriptions. Do you look at the cover of a book a lot or try to ignore the artist’s representation?

I like to see the authors idea of what the characters look like and who their inspiration was, but they don’t often match up to the image I get after reading the description of them. I like my “dream duke” to have dark hair, guess I’m partial to that 🙂

Diana, I’m partial to dark haired heroes too. In fact, I was editing my current work in progress today, and even though I gave him light brown hair, later in the book I describe his dark brown hair. LOL! Guess it’s my subconscious.

When I see the picture of whoever the author had in mind when she wrote the book, it seldom is who I see in my mind. Then I’ll look again and think “Perfect casting!” It’s like when you talk to someone on the phone for months and have a picture of them in your mind. When you meet them, the are nothing like that image.

It depends on description of the character. For Ava Stone’s A Scandalous Pursuit, I picture David Gandy as the Duke of Kelfield. I picture celebrities, because I imagine if this was made into a movie who would I cast as. It’s fun that way. 😀

Hi, Shana! No, I don’t picture celebrities when I read a novel. I totally immerse myself in the descriptions of the characters as written by the author. The author has taken the time to create wonderful characters and I enjoy seeing them in my mind’s eye as portrayed in the novel. I’m not a huge follower of television or movie celebrities anyway. I get excited when I get pictures of my favorite authors not TV/movie stars. I’m weird that way, I guess! 🙂

I am so excited about “How to Give a Duke a Diamond” and I cannot wait to read it! I also enjoy chatting with you on The Sisterhood of the Jaunty Quills. It’s a daily haunt of mine and I hope others will join us!

I usually picture from the author’s description… and I’m terribly dense about most of the celebrities of today, unless they’ve been around for a number of years… But I’m looking forward to this series!

Some of my favorite celebs I picture as book characters are Hugh Grant, Sean Connery, Jim Caviezel (wow that guy is like the Timex watch, takes a licking an keeps on ticking, check out his bio to find out what happened during Passion of the Christ filming!), Chris Hemsworth, Brad Pitt, Daniel Radcliff, and even Alan Rickman from time to time. For the female characters I have often envisioned Kate Blanchett, Bryce Dallas Howard, Ashley Green, Bonnie Wright, Emma Watson, Natalie Portman, and several others. I think I would have a field day if some of my favorite books were made into films (would LOVE to see the Bastion Club Series by Stephanie Laurens put to film)! Thanks for the chance to win!

May, that’s a very good point. I had a few readers who dislike Angelina Jolie reluctant to read my LORD AND LADY SPY until I told them the heroine was not modeled after her or ever her character in Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

When I read a romance novel I usually wonder whether the author built the characters with a real person in mind. But most of the time the physical descriptions are sp accurate that I am able to create my own mental picture. Most of the times I visualize Matthew MacFadyen (Pride and Prejudice) for a dark haired character and Rupert Penry-Jones (Persuasion) for a.blond. They are my favorite.minadecaro@hotmail.com

The only person that I sometimes picture as the hero when I’m reading a book is Henry Cavill. Especially from his role as the Duke of Suffolk (The Tudors). 🙂

It’s great that you’re going to be incorporating characters from “When You Give a Duke A Diamond” into future novels. It’s nice to meet and follow characters from one book to another. I also think this heightens the excitement in waiting for the next book to be released. 🙂

Oh Shana….I so can’t wait for this new book/series to hit the shelves! It sounds terrific.

I love to picture in my mind what the characters look like and I’m very disappointed if the picture on the cover doesn’t match the description. I like your choice for Juliette. She looks like she has a bit of the devil in her eyes. But I think of Thomas Gibson for the Duke. Of course, he’s probably too old for the part, but when he smiles, he’s drop dead gorgeous.

And I share your sentiments about Downton Abbey. I can’t wait for the next season to start. There are going to be fireworks between the Dowager Countess and Cora’s mother!

Karen, Downton Abbey needs to hurry up and start playing over here. have you seen the trailer for season 3? Oh, my! Yes, I am seriously disappointed when the cover artist doesn’t do justice to the author’s description–especially when it’s one of mine!

When I’m reading historical romance, which is my favorite genre, I don’t think of the celebrities of today but rather famous people who actually lived during the time period in which the book is written.

Have you every been inspired by a historical person when you’ve written on of your characters and social events of the time your stories are written in?

I’m also curious what actually historical event in history most influenced your decision for you to include something, whether am event or a historical person, in one of your books?

Hey Jeanne, I often put the Prince of Wales in my books. And once I put Lord Alvanley in a book. Otherwise, I tend to simply mention real life people in passing.

The French Revolution definitely influences my writing. I’d love to write a book with that setting. In my Sons of the Revolution series I was only able to put flashbacks of the heroes’ experiences in the Revolution.

Hello Shana Galen! I love picturing some of my favorite WWE wrestlers in most of the stories I read. It might be due to their strong body structures. I have also pictured one of my all time favorite characters and the actor who played him so well, Mr. Darcy (Matthew Macfayden). I look forward to your new book and thank you for the opportunity to win it!

I also don’t use movie stars. I like to make up in my mind what the characters look like. For some reason my favorite are dark haired hero’s too. Unless it is a red head Irish hero. I really love those too. Not many in romance books for some reason. I really love the sound of your book. Thanks for the giveaway!

I never picture celebs as characters as I read books. I really prefer the characters to take on a life of their own. In most cases, I don’t think there would be celebs who would look or act like the characters.

I too don’t imagine movie stars but like to make up my own character after reading the author’s description. As to covers, the partial faces are safer because there is nothing worse than not caring for the model on the cover (but usually they are great lol).

When I read romance novels no actual beings actually take form as a character. Rather the characters exist only in my imagination. I do think their features are inspired by people I meet, celebrities and the cover models though.

For someone who puts so much emphasis on cover art, I don’t envision anyone (with a couple of rare circumstances) as the character when I read, not even the models on the cover. Sure, I keep track of the hair and eye colors (and hair length, if applicable) of the characters, but that’s about it.

I prefer to develop my own visual of the characters of the novels that I read. So many celebrities have negative press at some time or another that it could influence the way I feel about a character in a book.

Hey Marge. No author wants any reader thinking negatively about a character, which is why these posts always make me a bit nervous. But I know even if an author has someone in mind, the reader will develop their own image.

I have never been good at “casting” books, probably because I don’t watch many tv shows or movies (I would much rather read). And, although I love book covers, I don’t tend to pay much attention to the character descriptions most of the time. Most heroes end up looking the same in my mind (my dream guy I guess, lol).

I don’t usually picture characters in books as real people, celebrities or otherwise. I just get a general idea in my head from the description and run with it. I do love Johnny Depp and Gerard Butler, among many, but haven’t really seen any characters that I thought resembled them. I like it when authors give me a visual of what they imagine their characters look like though, that’s always fun.

while I think it’s interesting who the author pictured while creating her characters, I generally don’t match it up while I’m actually reading. in part due to the fact that I’m terrible at putting names & faces together and I’m not always particularly good at picturing a particular person in my mind either 🙂

I actually don’t really picture celebrities as characters when I read a book. I guess I just let the visual come to me as I read and like others have pointed out, the hero might just be the same imagined guy over and over again, lol. However, there are instances where either the author has specifically said a character looks like a certain celebrity or other readers share the celebrity they visualize that I may start to visualize the same celebrity as the character.

Haha, I totally agree! Thank goodness I’m pretty good with reverting back to my imagined faceless guy if the celebrity is either one I don’t really like or just someone who, to me, just isn’t the character at all. 😛

another Winnie here. I usually don’t usually imagine celebrities as book characters. However I will think of Dan Stevens and Robin Wright Penn when I read this book. Also, Colin Firth will forever be Darcy whenever I read Pride and Prejudice.

I sometimes picture celebrities as the h/h In the book I read but other times it just a face that I’ve never seen. A couple of celebrities that often come to mind though are Matt Bomer, Henry Cavill, Paul Walker, Chace Crawford, Channing tatum … I think the theme here is HOTT men!! Hahahaha! 🙂